NBC Sucks! AKA NBC Primetime lowest watched week ever!

They have been in the weeds a lot longer then 5 years, one could make the argument that since Friends left the air 9 years ago that the network has produced nothing but crap and critical darlings that not enough people care about. (Hi Thursday night!)

I tried watching revolution but the characters are so bland, Charlie and her brother are annoyingly useless and the storylines aren't that interesting. And I have gotten tired of flashbacks. It is another of these perennial limited premise mystery epic that end up going nowhere

Three executives close to the situation reported this week that Mr. Greenblatt had taken offense to monologue jokes Mr. Leno made last month in the wake of news stories about NBC’s ratings struggles and how the network had fallen into fifth place in the sweeps month of February — behind the Spanish-language network Univision.

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Isn't part of this guy's job to greenlight comedies? How can he do that if he utterly lacks a sense of humor?

Yeah, everyone on the Facebook page complains that the show has gone to the dogs. It wasn't all that good last year, I think it's an okay show with amazing musical performances. I don't mind it when it gets cheesy, but not everyone's taste. It is finally doing something, this past two weeks, with its characters and this is when the complaints have been the loudest. I don't get it.

Ever since they drew 4.5 million households and a 1.6 in the demo for the season premiere (which was down 25% from the season finale last year), I have watched their ratings tank. They probably can't get advertisers anymore. DVR and the internet is killing television. We need to have a new metric to measure including DVRs.

They don't have "The Voice" to lead them in anymore. And it's pretty unanimous--no one like's Jeremy Jordan's character.

They have been in the weeds a lot longer then 5 years, one could make the argument that since Friends left the air 9 years ago that the network has produced nothing but crap and critical darlings that not enough people care about. (Hi Thursday night!)

DVR and the internet is killing television. We need to have a new metric to measure including DVRs.

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The Nielsens already measure DVR viewing, and also measure that only about 40% of viewers watch the ads (an old stat, may no longer be accurate and I'd imagine if it changes over time, it will go lower.)

As for the internet, that's where all TV is headed, so they need to learn to play together nicely (and that's already started).

The real problem is that TV (broadly defined) has split into two general markets.

One is exemplified by CBS - the remnants of what used to be the mass market; cop shows, sitcoms and reality TV; still large enough to be ad-supported - for now.

The other is exemplified by Netflix - niche appeal TV for niche markets; must be subscription based. This also encompasses cable, but Netflix is the ultimate example of where the whole subscription ecosystem is headed.

Other than CBS, broadcast has the dilemma of having to compete with subscription-based niche programming without the subscription revenues. Smash is just the latest victim of that split. It was originally envisioned for Showtime and might have been a lot better there, or at any rate, 4M viewers would have been enough to keep it going, and nobody would worry about the demo.

Everything interesting in drama, comedy or documentary will end up on the Netflix system. The CBS system will exist in some form, focused on live TV - competitions of some kind, especially sports.

Other than CBS, broadcast has the dilemma of having to compete with subscription-based niche programming without the subscription revenues. Smash is just the latest victim of that split. It was originally envisioned for Showtime and might have been a lot better there, or at any rate, 4M viewers would have been enough to keep it going, and nobody would worry about the demo.

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Yeah, Smash is definitely a niche show that would have been much better on pay or broadcast cable. Had it been geared toward kids, it might have been a hit a la Glee, but geared toward adults, it just isn't able to hold enough of that audience's attention.

The show this season has been much improved too. They dropped all of the angsty private life crap and the musical presentations i.e, song choice and placement, and performance have been great as opposed to what was seen last season.

Other than CBS, broadcast has the dilemma of having to compete with subscription-based niche programming without the subscription revenues. Smash is just the latest victim of that split. It was originally envisioned for Showtime and might have been a lot better there, or at any rate, 4M viewers would have been enough to keep it going, and nobody would worry about the demo.

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Yeah, Smash is definitely a niche show that would have been much better on pay or broadcast cable. Had it been geared toward kids, it might have been a hit a la Glee, but geared toward adults, it just isn't able to hold enough of that audience's attention.

The show this season has been much improved too. They dropped all of the angsty private life crap and the musical presentations i.e, song choice and placement, and performance have been great as opposed to what was seen last season.

But glad to hear that they plan on etting them finish it out.

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I think it's a mixed bag this season. Some of the smaller parts have been un-watchable. Jennifer Hudson's "Momager" role, lines like "Booze. Weed. Coke" just to show you how cheesy they have written the bad boy on this show. The point has been made that these characters never got a proper introduction and so the audience has no connection to them.

Some things have seemed unreal. For instance, the moments leading up to "Just keep moving the line," are cringe-worthy. No way do they crash the party, get on stage, and no one gets to them until it's too late. The "steamy" scene with JFK and Marilyn was one of the worst numbers they have ever done and everyone on the show loved it. We had nothing from Julia's new book for the audience to be invested in whether they wanted the "smart, sophisticated, artistic" version of Bombshell, or what we saw last season. In a lot of ways, Smash has become like every other TV show in that they don't bring much of the flavor of Broadway anymore. There are lines like "We can't have mirrors on stage, it will blind the audience," which is good. But the situations seem like someone writing for an audience that is supposed to be stupid enough to believe all this is realistic.

They made Tom spineless and then gave him nothing to do for 2-3 episodes (Julia has a new writing partner, all he does is fight with Derek, of course, Tom backs down). With exception of the last two episodes, they have done NOTHING with Jeremy Jordan you don't get in an after-school special.

Not all has been bad. I thought Jennifer Hudson has done a great job with that role and I always want to see more of her. Derek has been in rare form, as has Megan Hilty, who has gone from suicidal and humble, almost quitting, to telling the star of "Liaisons" where he can get off. She's made it seem believable and they have given her a lot to do without her being so over-the-top as she was last year. Still, I think it's too late for a lot of the fans to like the character.

I miss Dev. Some of the best moments of season one involved exploring how this "soon-to-be" star would handle her life changing, and how it cost her fiance because both of them are very driven and going in different directions. I wish they didn't have a soapy end to the relationship, though. It was a nice counter-weight to the relationship between Derek and Ivy as well, to show you how different these two people are, yet they both embody parts of Marilyn Monroe.

I know about Showtime having Smash and when the Studio hired whoever is President of NBC right now, he brought the property with him from Showtime. If it was geared towards kids, I wouldn't watch it. As a matter of fact, it's actually those making over 100,000 dollars a year that are watching Smash.

Other than CBS, broadcast has the dilemma of having to compete with subscription-based niche programming without the subscription revenues. Smash is just the latest victim of that split. It was originally envisioned for Showtime and might have been a lot better there, or at any rate, 4M viewers would have been enough to keep it going, and nobody would worry about the demo.

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Yeah, Smash is definitely a niche show that would have been much better on pay or broadcast cable. Had it been geared toward kids, it might have been a hit a la Glee, but geared toward adults, it just isn't able to hold enough of that audience's attention.

The show this season has been much improved too. They dropped all of the angsty private life crap and the musical presentations i.e, song choice and placement, and performance have been great as opposed to what was seen last season.

But glad to hear that they plan on etting them finish it out.

Click to expand...

I think it's a mixed bag this season. Some of the smaller parts have been un-watchable. Jennifer Hudson's "Momager" role, lines like "Booze. Weed. Coke" just to show you how cheesy they have written the bad boy on this show. The point has been made that these characters never got a proper introduction and so the audience has no connection to them.

Some things have seemed unreal. For instance, the moments leading up to "Just keep moving the line," are cringe-worthy. No way do they crash the party, get on stage, and no one gets to them until it's too late. The "steamy" scene with JFK and Marilyn was one of the worst numbers they have ever done and everyone on the show loved it. We had nothing from Julia's new book for the audience to be invested in whether they wanted the "smart, sophisticated, artistic" version of Bombshell, or what we saw last season. In a lot of ways, Smash has become like every other TV show in that they don't bring much of the flavor of Broadway anymore. There are lines like "We can't have mirrors on stage, it will blind the audience," which is good. But the situations seem like someone writing for an audience that is supposed to be stupid enough to believe all this is realistic.

They made Tom spineless and then gave him nothing to do for 2-3 episodes (Julia has a new writing partner, all he does is fight with Derek, of course, Tom backs down). With exception of the last two episodes, they have done NOTHING with Jeremy Jordan you don't get in an after-school special.

Not all has been bad. I thought Jennifer Hudson has done a great job with that role and I always want to see more of her. Derek has been in rare form, as has Megan Hilty, who has gone from suicidal and humble, almost quitting, to telling the star of "Liaisons" where he can get off. She's made it seem believable and they have given her a lot to do without her being so over-the-top as she was last year. Still, I think it's too late for a lot of the fans to like the character.

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I think these are all nitpicks that the few of us who do like the show don't really care about. They got rid of the most annoying elements from last season and replaced them with more music and more story about the two shows in production. The power struggle between over who is going to run the show, between Eileen and her ex-husband is great.

The creative way the music is being presented this season is a revelation compared to last season when it seemed every song and it's placement and preswentation were completely predictable (and I'm not talking only about the songs from the show).

I miss Dev. Some of the best moments of season one involved exploring how this "soon-to-be" star would handle her life changing, and how it cost her fiance because both of them are very driven and going in different directions. I wish they didn't have a soapy end to the relationship, though. It was a nice counter-weight to the relationship between Derek and Ivy as well, to show you how different these two people are, yet they both embody parts of Marilyn Monroe.

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The concept was good, but I didn't care about the direction in which Dez wanted to go. After a while I thought, okay, just let him go and move on -- the show is now better for it. Now if Dez had been say, a musician who wanted Karen to front his band or an actor who wanted the two to move to California and get into film, that might have been interesting. But the fact that he was a political staffer just didn't interest me at all in his character.

I think these are all nitpicks that the few of us who do like the show don't really care about. They got rid of the most annoying elements from last season and replaced them with more music and more story about the two shows in production. The power struggle between over who is going to run the show, between Eileen and her ex-husband is great.

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Oh, I am glad that Julia's husband is GONE. The acting was bad from the whole family. The adoption storyline, the overreaction from the 17-year-old that wants a baby sister? The pot smoking? The horrible acting choices. I am glad both are gone. And if they had continued the "Who's going to be Marilyn?" storyline another year, I probably would've tuned out. Although, some fans still want them to compete, they think that's dramatic.

I have also heard that "too many storylines are going on at once." I think this is what's great about this year (although there's some potential that hasn't been fulfilled). The scope of the show is bigger. I like the inside references. I like that I had to look up who Jordan Roth was and that the St. James was a real theater (and that Roth is 3rd generation owner), or who Michael Riedel was (I even read one of his reviews). I liked that I had to look up "Dangerous Liaisons" to find out what play Ivy was starring in (And Cruel Intentions was based on it, some scenes from the movie not related to CI made in the early 90s). It's a window into the real Broadway that I never get to see because I don't live in New York and I don't have the money to see the touring shows. All I would be doing is reading theater blogs, somebody else's opinion of the show.

The creative way the music is being presented this season is a revelation compared to last season when it seemed every song and it's placement and presentation were completely predictable (and I'm not talking only about the songs from the show).

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We agree here. The songs have meaning for the characters and their relevance in the show as well. They haven't missed a beat with the music. I think the show's music is the one thing that has gotten better as time has gone along. I don't mean to leave you with the impression I'm not thrilled to watch it every week. It's just not perfect or worth an award for more than the music.

The concept was good, but I didn't care about the direction in which Dev wanted to go. After a while I thought, okay, just let him go and move on -- the show is now better for it. Now if Dev had been say, a musician who wanted Karen to front his band or an actor who wanted the two to move to California and get into film, that might have been interesting. But the fact that he was a political staffer just didn't interest me at all in his character.

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Krysta Rodriguez has really taken over for Dev as far as giving someone for Karen to verbalize what she's thinking. But they don't use her enough and so Karen is just out there trying to be with Jeremy Jordan, nothing really from rehearsal or her dealings with people in the business. That's part of why I miss him. I think it was a loving relationship and I don't really care if he was a clown in a carnival instead of a politician, he was going to have to leave and he was being pushed aside for Rebecca Duvall, he tried to ask her to move to Washington, DC and never finished the conversation. He started avoiding her and keeping things from her because he was afraid he'd lose her. And it caused her to be hurt that he wasn't telling her things. I don't think Dev was the problem last season, and as an avid political junkie, there was nothing in the show that remotely dealt with politics. A sex scandal? That you find in the tabloids. It's not like they were talking about policy on Smash.

I feel bad abut Smash because some of the musical numbers really were well done, and plausible as part of a real life musical. Like so, but they can't do this every week:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfMq1CtnCbM[/yt]

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That's in "The Callback." And the make-over is for the green Karen Cartwright to be transformed into a star. It makes sense for the character as well as being realistic in something that Marilyn did. At the same time, they show Karen not as head-strong as Marilyn, or as confident, as she is in this song. And she struggled to find her movements because of it, to the point that she lost the part because of ticking Derek off so much.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e76dKAE12VU[/yt]
This is last week's. It looks like Jimmy and Karen are finally going to get together. And the change in scenery is Derek's vision of the play after he quit Bombshell over changing Never Give All the Heart. The symbolism is clear. Jimmy is off the bridge, on the pylons, near the danger in the water. Karen is standing at the start of the bridge, afraid to walk over it towards him, until he starts towards her. She saves him and he gets her to trust again, which is exactly what's happening in the show. Jimmy wouldn't have this dream of making it to Broadway, or he wouldn't have the opportunity to pursue it, without her. And he is heavily into drugs and drinking which could cause him to "fall into the water," so to speak. She is trying to trust someone after Dev slept with Ivy at the end of last season. And that's the "heart-shaped wreckage." And they meet half-way to show that both are ready to give this a try. At least, my take on it.

Just a couple of examples of how the music works in Smash. I just hope I got the symbolism right.

Signed and dated something as 2003 the other day. When it was pointed out to me it still took about 5 seconds to click... it being 2013 still doesn't sit quite right but I guess I accept it on an intellectual level if not in my heart

I feel like I probably watched a lot more crap on NBC compared to crap on some of the other channels over this past lost decade of mine.

NBC - Community, The Office, Parks and Rec, The Apprentice ("celeb" versions at least), Heroes, Chuck... I guess Revolution though I'm all but ready to bail on that (coming from a guy who stuck it out all the way through Heroes, that's a pretty bad sign)

CBS - Survivor... and uhhh... I guess Big Bang...

FOX - 24... Family Guy... uhh the occasional season of American Idol? Do Futurama and Firefly still count?